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July 02, 2008

Bananas: The Atheist's Worst Nightmare

Bananas: The Atheist's Worst Nightmare

From SkepticWiki

"Bananas: The Atheist's Worst Nightmare" is a particular variant of an argument from design which describes how the banana's features reveal its true cosmic origins. The argument traces back to Ray Comfort and former Growing Pains actor Kirk Cameron's evangelical Christian talk show, and it is summed up as follows:

Note that the banana:

1 Is shaped for human hand

2 Has non-slip surface

3 Has outward indicators of inward content:

Green-too early,

Yellow-just right,

Black-too late.

4 Has a tab for removal of wrapper

5 Is perforated on wrapper

6 Bio-degradable wrapper

7 Is shaped for human mouth

8 Has a point at top for ease of entry

9 Is pleasing to taste buds

10 Is curved towards the face to make eating process easy

To say that the banana happened by accident is even more unintelligent than to say that no one designed the Coca Cola can. [1]

The argument is of such dubious quality that it could very easily be
mistaken for a parody, and hardly merits serious discussion at all.
However, in the rare instance that you come across a creationist
sufficiently starry-eyed to fall for it, then it could be helpful to
keep in mind some of the problems of this argument:

A wild banana. Note the black, rock-hard seeds.

Wild bananas are inedible by humans and contain large seeds,
this fact would appear to be contrary to the belief that bananas were
designed with humans in mind. [2]
Seedless bananas, while preferred by humans, are useless to the banana
plant, which, being sterile, has to be artificially cultivated by
vegetative cloning (i.e. taking cuttings).

Cultivated bananas were not designed by cosmic intervention, but were produced by humans using artificial selection. Bananas are one of the first fruits domesticated and cultivated by human beings a little more than 7000 years ago [3]
Humans have bred bananas selectively for smaller seeds and a tastier
banana, in much the same way we have cultivated seedless grapes and
watermelons.

The modern banana is the result of a well-documented chance mutation during the nineteenth century:

Those first bananas that people knew in antiquity were not
sweet like the bananas we know today, but were cooking bananas or
plantain bananas with a starchy taste and composition. The bright
yellow bananas that we know today were discovered as a mutation from
the plantain banana by a Jamaican, Jean Francois Poujot, in the year
1836. He found this hybrid mutation growing in his banana tree
plantation with a sweet flavor and a yellow color—instead of green or
red, and not requiring cooking like the plantain banana. The rapid
establishment of this new exotic fruit was welcomed worldwide, and it
was massively grown for world markets.[4]

If this argument were really given serious consideration, then
it is really a wonder why many other edible fruits and seeds have
thorns or tough husks. These are perfectly reasonable features to
expect as a product of evolution, but quite incredibly awkward when considering as a product of divine design.

As is typical with design arguments,
it is unjustifiably anthropocentric. In particular, as much as the
colors of a banana would serve as an indicator of its inner content to
humans, it very likely served as an indicator to animals. In this case,
the colors of the banana are a product of evolution, not foresight into
future human consumption. In nature, it is beneficial for soft fruits
with tough seeds (like the wild banana) to have an attractive exterior.
This encourages animals to eat them, spread their seeds and allow the
fruit to reproduce (see our main article on Means of Dispersal for more information). This would indicate that the fruit's appearance is nothing more than natural selection at work, rather a divine designer trying to impress us with shiny surfaces.

Further anthropocentric bias is the remark that bananas are
shaped for the human hand, and shaped for the human mouth. There is no
reason to believe that the banana is intended for human mouths and
hands any more than it is intended for monkey mouths and hands.

Much of the evidence for design cited are superfluous, such as
pointing out that the banana has a biodegradable wrapper (what makes
the banana any more special than the billions of other organisms that
biodegrade in nature?).

The comparison between soda cans and bananas is a false analogy. The theory of evolution does not address the origins of things that do not reproduce.

There is an amazing array of things much more wonderful and
complex than a soda can, for which we need not assume any intelligent
design or purpose. They all share this property at least: a
billion-year evolutionary heritage. Lacking this, the soda can does not
belong in this class, and we must admit another explanation.

And finally, for those with a mind in the gutter, the argument is ripe (no pun intended) for parody value. The author of GodlessBastard.com has put together a telling parody about the banana fruit as a perfectly engineered sex toy [5].

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so what is your point? that bananas prove that there is no god? what a waste of time reading this. for those that believe nothing you say will change that, for those that don't, nothing i say will convince them.

The reason people post this stuff is for the millions of people who question how ridiculous the concept of religion is. For instance an invisible man who created everyone yet only lets a certain group of his own creation into heaven.

he's not necessarily saying this proves god doesnt exist, what he is saying is that it certainly does not prove god DOES exist. which is the point kirk cameron made. which is why kirk is bad for both sides. he makes resonable believers seem like idiots. have you ever heard his argument involving chimps and table manners? ridiculous...

the fact that creationists rely on Kirky boy to put forward their champion arguments show how desperate they are. When I first heard the banana thing I thought well, a monkeys fave food is banana, maybe we evolved in tandem:p

And the fact that you can now buy organic bananas further proves that God cares about us, and that pesticides are a creation of the Devil! Unfortunately, my bananas are not local, which means God still doesn't buy into the whole global warming myth . . .

I'd never seen this "argument" before (inverted commas used because it doesn't meet the criteria to be considered an argument by the rules of logic). What a laugh. This sort of stuff really does a lot of damage to the cause of religion.

People: when are you going to realize there are two races on this planet? One decended from a lower form of primate and now worship themselves. The other was created and now worships the one that created both them and the lower primate.

1. We don't worship ourselves. We don't worship anything. We don't *have* religion, Thom. That's what makes us atheists. Just because you've got the idea in your head that someone must be worshipping something all the time doesn't mean we do. Besides, if we worshipped ourselves, we'd be satanists. You know, a little reading every now and then is good for you. You should try it.

2. We don't try to insult and degrade religious folks to prove our point. We insult and degrade religious folks because your wacky ideas and complete obliviousness warrant being made fun of.

"To say that the banana happened by accident is even more unintelligent than to say that no one designed the Coca Cola can."

I'd just like to point out that when considering whether something was DESIGNED or not (in the past), it's helpful to consider how it is in fact MADE (production has the benefit that it is something we can currently actually see). How something is made can give us lots of clues about how or whether it was designed.

Things that were intelligently designed, even if that design includes trial-and-error (Rolex watches, coke cans, television sets, etc.) are all produced by intelligent beings or produced by things produced by intelligent beings, using processes that may mirror the design. We see the measuring and fitting of parts for example, building up of colors using spray paints, etc. Whereas living things are produced out of the bodies of previous living things. That is a BIG difference! Seems obvious, but it's overlooked.

Anytime you hear someone talk about the design of living things, ask them where they, as a living thing, actually come from. Production follows design. Ask them to carefully consider the fact that they literally popped out of an orifice of their grown mother and think about how different that process of production is from the production of designed objects.

So let me get this straight -- according to the refutation of the "argument" posted above, the bananas that we all eat were intelligently designed? The rebuttal isn't particularly helpful here. Bananas produced by humans were still guided by an intelligence, just not the one attributed in the original argument. The "chance mutation" spoken of certainly doesn't seem to be a beneficial one, as I'm assuming it resulted in the seedless bananas that we eat today?

Yeah, I didn't really follow the footnotes (I tried one but it was dead and I don't care THAT much to make the argument here), but it would appear that bananas-as-we-are-familiar-with-them WERE, in fact, intelligently designed for human consumption! In other words, intelligent design did in less than 200 years what it took evolution a billion years to get done...

Thom: "the thing I find amusing is how evolutionists and atheists think to prove their points by insulting and degrading anyone who disagrees with their religion of worshiping themselves."

First, your sentence construction lack coherency and is difficult to follow. Perhaps, before studying the Bible, you could study a basic grammar and English usage book.

Second--and I'm basing this off of what I interpret to be Thom's position--is that evolutionists and atheists rarely insult or degrade anyone. It is amusing to note that, the more defensive the religious are, the more they take what is premise questioning as insulting and degrading. The mere questioning of why it is something is believed does not make it an insult. If you told me the cup if red, but I said it was blue, and I showed you examples of what blue looked like, I would be questioning and possibly refuting your argument that the cup is red. It doesn't mean I'm insulting you or degrading you. No, insulting you would go like this: "You're so stupid, what are you, an idiotic monkey?" That, Thom, is insulting. Or degrading. So, if I say to you, "Tell me on what basis you believe there is a god, or God" and I question the basis on which your belief lies, that does not necessarily constitute degradation or insulting. Sure, I guess if I asked it with a very sarcastic tone of voice there could be an element of insult, but the question itself does give rise to insult or degradation.

Third, as another poster pointed out, atheists do not have a "religion". In fact, atheists are nothing more than people who fail to believe in something merely because others have said it is so. Do you believe that there is an omnipotent god called Zeus, ruling from Mt. Olympus? If you don't, then you might even be an atheist. An atheist isn't really the opposite of a believer. An atheist is simply a person who does not take something as important as the concept of a God to be the literal truth because some black book says so.

Fourth, atheists don't worship themselves, at least not in the traditional religious sense. I mean, shit, I'm good looking and my girlfriend probably worships me to some respect, but that's not because I'm atheist.

Fifth, regarding the insulting and degradation, you'll rarely get an atheist worked up and overly argumentative about their non-belief, but have you ever tried arguing with a religious nut? Why is it that the "converted" are so frenetic about their position when atheists are not. Perhaps this says something about the strength of their position. After all, if it's so godammned obvious that there's a big white bearded dude in the sky who rules over us and answers our prayers (especially the ones concerning whether our favourite college football team will win the state finals, or not), it shouldn't be that difficult to convince the rest of us. But it is, and that's what you should be asking.

"...intelligent design did in less than 200 years what it took evolution a billion years to get done."

"Artificial selection" (for example: breeding a banana without seeds, or a horse with long legs) is a type of natural selection. It is making use of organic evolution to make living things more desireable to humans. Yes, it is a form of intelligent design. But it's man doing the designing. And it is only possible within the constraints of the genetics as they exist before we get involved. BTW, natural selection without human design, the vast majority of evolution, has done far more amazing things than "artificial selection".

Let me see if I've got this right. There is a God, because the banana so perfectly fits human needs. So, what about the pineapple? Was that designed by Satan, perhaps?

If you're looking for God in nature, check out the ichneumon wasp. When the female wants to lay eggs, she stings a caterpillar to paralyze, but not kill it. She lays the eggs inside the living body of the hapless caterpillar. When the eggs hatch, they begin to eat the caterpillar from inside, eventually killing it. Evidence suggests that the caterpillar is paralyzed, but not numb, so that it can feel what is happening to it.

Is this the Hand of God? If God made all the animals (everything that creepeth, flyeth, etc.), then He made this thing. What was He thinking? Was it a bad hair day or something?

You can't just pick and choose the occasional facts of nature and try to claim that it proves God did it. There are endless counterexamples to refute that claim.

Whoever wrote this "banana" proof of God's existence needs to get his/her facts straight, and to find something a bit more convincing than a fruit that has been selectively modified by *humans* to fit their needs.